Stories change from the first, second, third, fifteenth, twentieth, etc. draft. There is no way for us to know if R.J., looking at how he finalized certain moments, would have changed the story. Interestingly, the way he set up the series to occur in a cyclical universe meant that we as readers are free to imagine changes in the characters, their storylines and how the events played out while preserving the overall structure of the quest. He might have fleshed out the last scene or Alivia's role more if he had more time, but the clock wound down and he was racing to finish the story with the time he had left.